today former state department officials will testify on usaid o egypt. you can watch live coverage from the appropriations subcommittee at 2:15 p.m. eastern. we'll have that for you on c-span3. also follow the hearings streaming live at c-span.org or listen live on the c-span radio app. join c-span saturday for the annual white house correspondentents association dinner. our live coverage begins at 9:30 p.m. eastern and senior daily show correspondent mminhaj attends the diener. prum says he will not attend. it was back to ronald reagan who did not attempt since he was recovering from a assassination attempt. in a statement the president says the whca takes note of president drum's announcement on twitter that he does not plan to attend the dinner which has been and will continue to be a celebration of the first amendment and important role

played by an independent news media in a healthy republic. c-span spoke to the outgoing executive director of the white house correspondent association and past president of the group who focused on the history of the dinner and gave us a behind the scenes look at preparations. his is about 40 minutes. >> george condon, white house correspondent for national journal and coming without with a history of the association and its annual dinner. thanks for being with us. and julie, the long-time executive director of the association, thank you. host: talk about this dinner. why the washington hilton? how many people are in attendance? and how do you pull this off? guest: we use the washington hilton specifically because they can accommodate over 2,600 in the room for dinner. they can accommodate the preparties. we have had up to 22 preparties

that are private. and they have a holding room for the president. and the bunker. and i think that gives everybody a comfort level. host: the logistics for the hotel itself. this is the single biggest event they do every year, correct? guest: other than the prayer breakfast which is different seating. yes. host: george, talk about the significance of this year and this dinner. prum is not in attendance. why? guest: it's not unprecedented for a president not to come. we have had cases most recently ronald reagan didn't come in 1981, but had he a good excuse. he had been shot. but he called in from camp david. he was a presence at the dinner. host: had he a line -- he basically said when the secret service said get in the car, listen to them. guest: it was a funny call. and before that, jimmy carter really disliked the press, disliked the dinner.

he skipped two of his. and unlike other presidents who had skipped it, didn't send his vice president, didn't send the first lady. suffer.d the press to in his diary he talked about they want me to come and perform for my supper, i'm not going to do that. they are terrible. he sent jody powell in 1978, his press secretary, to basically make barbed jokes aimed at the press. he came again in 1980 and was a little more accommodating. it dent wasn't pretty. -- it wasn't pretty. what's unprecedented about this year's dinner is the staff boycotting it. that has never happened. i actually find that troubling because the dinner started in 1921 to honor the press, to take care of the people and the staff who work with the press. and we always, every year, try

to get the stenos who prepare the transcripts, the people in the travel office who take care of the luggage, people who are out of the spotlight, we try to give them a night where we can say thanks. so i find it troubling the staff's not coming. host: we'll look at some of the moments over the years. julie, how is that impacting this dinner this year? guest: actually, we have sold out once again. and when i started in 1993, the room was sold out. t i'm afraid it has impacted our media companies who bought tables and expected that they would get guests from the white house the way they always have. it didn't impact us, but unfortunately i believe it did impact our members and the organizations. host: let's talk about a you >> milestone years to take a step back. 1924, why is that year

significant in your research on the book that's coming out. guest: because that's the first year that a president of the united states attended. calvin coolidge it also was interesting because he gave such a long, terribly boring speech on the separation of powers and what the constitution means to correspondent association told him and every president afterwards, you don't have to give a speech. we don't want a speech from the president because basically we don't want another long, boring talk about the separation of powers. and that became unintentionally very important in drawing other presidents to the dinner because they loved the fact that they didn't have to give a speech. so hoover, herbert hoover loved coming to the dinner because he didn't have to give a speech. f.d.r. talked about this is

great. i don't have to perform for my supper. truman -- that held until john f. kennedy in 1961 gave about a four-minute speech that included jokes. it sort of became something that presidents felt they had to do after that. host: another milestone year, 1941. what's significant? guest: that was the year the association came of age and got really established. the single most important dinner ever because the night before the dinner, president roosevelt, who had just signed the lease, asked permission from the correspondents to give a speech and to address the nation, a live address to the nation by radio from the dinner podium. and correspondents had all this humor planned and skits and opera singers. felt they had to say yes, you can't say no to the president. so they went from humor, broke

to a speech that was broadcast live, the bbc translated it into 45 languages. it ended up drawing headlines and reaction from hitler and from the -- tojo in japan. it was a speech basically telling the democratic nations of the world, we'll be there. we're going to help protect democracies in this war. so after -- then after you ended the speech, basically signaled that thousands of americans probably were going to die in this war, they went to a comedian named jay to start doing vaudeville acts it was jarring but the coming of age of dinner. host: let me get you thoughts on the issue of news that happens. it was 10 years ago this month. the massacre at virginia tech. george w. bush was not funny at that dinner. when you were head of the association in 1994, a former president dies the night before.

guest: it ended up the night before the dinner i get a call from the white house saying like to do a moment of silence. i had already planned that. to the dinner remarks looking back at what nixon had said to the dinner. nixon had talked several times about the importance of the dinner and press relations. so i added that. and president clinton and i spent much of the evening talking about how much he had relied on nixon for help on china policy and so on. but the president still did his humor routine. host: we have all been there inside the room, right before the dinner is about to happen, but you are the one making it all come together. what's going through your head and what's it like? give our audience a sense of the preparations the day and night of the dinner. guest: the day of the dinner we always open an office at the hotel. we have a rehearsal with our entertainer.

since cell phones came out, they do not want to put their material out there in the ballroom with waiters and everyone else who wanders in. most of the extraneous material in the past few years has been a surprise to us as it's been to the audience. a lot of the work is done coordinating with the secret service. ticketing. people lose a ticket. just logistics. the night of i'm really in the cabinet room with -- that's the v.i. pirks receptions before the dinner -- v.i.p. receptions before the dinner. we always had a president there. this year we won't. in my tenure since 1993. host: how do you feel about that? guest: i'm disappointed for the scholarship kids. we have 23 coming this year. they always look forward to a photo with the president.

and that's really what they are excited about. so i feel badly for them. as far as we're concerned, it's on with the show. host: let's take a look back at some of these dinners. i want to begin with a documentary done by the smithsonian channel looking at barack obama and his speech making ability, and they focus in part on the 2011 white house correspondent dinner. >> best speech ever is 2011. we had all these jokes ready. it's the saturday of the dinner. we're supposed to meet with him in the oval one last time to go over the jokes, the president's personal secretary says, he's on the phone with the general of afghanistan. you have to wait. we're like, why do we have to wait? our jokes are so important. the president opens the door, tossing a football around, he said come in. look, i like all the jokes, i think everything's funny. there is one joke where the punch line is bin laden.

and i would just change it to some other foreign sounding name, like mubarak, let's do that. i'm like that is not nunny. trust me, it will be funny. it's going to kill. it will be great. we change it. then right before the dinner, the president called me and said, i'm going to remember this myself, but just in case, would you also add at the very end of the speech, god bless america, and may god keep our troops safe. i was like that's an interesting thing to add to the dinner. sure enough the general in afghanistan, he was on the phone, he had just given the order for the bin laden mission. host: what a juxtaposition from a saturday night comedy routine in which he took aim at drum -- drum -- donald trump and sunday evening. guest: seth myers, the comedian that year, made a joke about bin laden has been found. he is alive. he's doing a show on c-span.

but i'm sorry to say the joke was -- the ratings weren't up people knew where bin laden was. the other thing that was interesting is that it's the most complete and total evisceration of an individual i have ever seen at one of these dinners. the president's jokes about donald trump, i had a very good view of trump during that entire inner, they really hit hard. the now president claims that he wasn't bothered and he laughed hard and so on. he was bothered. host: we had a clear view. what was happening that night? what do you remember? guest: there were several v.i.p.'s in the audience' at all these media tables. hollywood celebrities, who had private tours scheduled the next afternoon at the white house. and all of a sudden everybody

was getting a message on their cell phone, your tour is canceled for tomorrow afternoon. so several were at the table with bill and they looked at him and said, what's going on? we thought we would be at the white house tomorrow afternoon. and daly straight faced said they had pipe bursts, i don't know. host: let's look at the president's performance in april of 2011. president obama: donald trump is ere tonight. i know he's taken some flak lately. but no one is happyier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the donald. that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. like did we fake the moon landing?

what really happened in roswell? nd where are biggie and tupac? all kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. for example, seriously just recently in an episode of "celebrity apprentice" at the steak house, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from omaha steaks. and there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, mr. trumpp, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership and so ultimately you didn't blame little john or meatloaf. you fired gary busey.

these are the kind of decisions hat would keep me up at night. well handled, sir. well handled. say what you will about mr. trump, he certainly would bring ome change to the white house. ee what we got up there. host: gorge, that was -- george, that was 2011. guest: we were still waiting to see if we were going to have that change to the white house. i don't know rules it out. what made that so effective, it wasn't just cheap jokes about

his hair, which everybody else was making. and seth myers later made one. it really was cut right through to mr. trump's self-image. host: you know the old gridiron line, sing but not burn. what humor works, and what doesn't? guest: i think self-deprecation always works when it comes to the president's remarks at the dinner. no matter who is president right now, barack obama is a very hard act to follow. every entertainer we had for those eight years said, his timing is impeccable. i can't believe i have to follow him. this is tough. host: one of those moments might have been in 2005 when george w. bush is taken off the stage by his wife. president bush: a city slicker who is driving around and he came across this old cowboy. still the city slicker asked the

old guy how to get to the nearest town -- >> not that old joke. not again. [applause] mrs. bush: ladies and gentlemen, i have been attending these dinners for years. and just quietly sitting there. well, i've got a few things i want to say. [applause] mrs. bush: this is going to be fun because he really doesn't have a clue about what i'm going to say next.

george always says he's delighted to come to these press dinners. baloney. he's usually in bed by now. i'm not kidding. i said to him the other day, george, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're oing to have to stay up later. [applause] mrs. bush: i am married to the president of the united states, and here's our typical evening. 9:00, mr. excitement here is sound asleep. and i am watching "desperate housewives."

with lynn cheaney. -- cheney. ladies and gentlemen, i am a desperate housewife. i mean, if those woman on that show think they are desperate, they ought to be with george. host: julie, 12 years later you are still laughing at that. guest: i am. i'll tell you why. landon always wrote the speech for bush. and he was a genius. he used to laugh and call me and say, why don't we just have a juggler this year, julie. what are we doing? he was such a good sport. he would schedule his vacations around this dinner so he was available. host: did you have any idea that the first lady was going to preempt the president for the

dinner? guest: none. every year with the president's speech writers we give them a list of special guests in the room. and it turned out that year they knew that the cast from "desperate housewives" would be there. so they play off. host: george, have there been years when humor hasn't worked? guest: absolutely. my favorite example was the 1975 dinner and helen thomas was the president, and she was the first woman to be president of the correspondent association. the theme of the night was woman, hear me roar. we finally made it. and somebody got the bright idea that if we have a lebanese american named thomas as president, let's get a lebanese american as thomas as the entertainer. they brought danny thomas in.

marlo was there. she was celebrating this breakthrough for women. and danny thomas gets up there and starts doing his las vegas lounge act. the theme of which was, women, you love them but god they don't have brains. they just can't think. have you ever seen a woman drive? he tells these jokes about women drivers and women being dumb. and it's a tough audience. it started booing and hising. and he got madder and madder and he started trying to -- come on. i have women up on a pedestal. it's just they can't drive. and the booing and hissing got worse and finally, mercifully, he stopped and some women reporters were the washington star and "washington post" were following, what does it feel like to be booed? he turned on them and he said, what are your names? i'm going to have you both fired?

and we have all been there where we love our parents but they -- we know they have done something that's embarrassing. and marlo is there following. he's just kidding, girls. he's just kidding. twice rich little was there 1984 and then 2007 and half the people he was doing in his act were dead. ed sullivan and johnny carson and nixon. and that bombed badly. there are others i could mention. but danny thomas is my favorite. host: talk about another moment by the way. all these videos available on our website at c spament.org. in 2006 the white house calls you the night before the dinner and says what? the second podium. guest: it wasn't the white house that called me. it was the secret service. and they said, we're going to have a second podium on stage. i said that means senior

president bush will be joining his son on stage? they said, as far as we know. host: this is what happened in 006. president bush: members of the white house correspondent association, distinguished guests. adies and gentlemen here i am. >> here i am another one of these dang press dinners. could be home asleep. little barney curled up at my feet.

but, no. i got to pretend i like being ere. the media really ticks me off. but where they try to embarrass me but not vetting what i say. well, let's get things going or i'll never get to bed. thank you, mark. i'm absolutely delighted to be ere. president bush: as is laura. >> she's hot. mui caliente.

host: julie, another landon special? guest: i think so. host: lou did he pull that off? how did steve bridges pull that off? how did the white house and secret service organize this? guest: the white house advance had booked a room up in the hotel. steve bridges was just another guest walking in to the hotel earlier that morning. his makeup was put on up in that room and they brought him down right before he walked on stage in a freight elevator. host: you had no idea. guest: no idea at all. host: this was the same dinner, george, steven coal bear was at. the next day more people talked about steven coal bear than the president's performance. why? guest: there was a tremendous divide between the reaction in the room, the 2,00 people and the people watching on c-span or the other cable channels. and part of it is bob hope first

talked about this at the 1945 dinner. before people in the room would laugh at his jokes, they looked to president roosevelt. it is just a natural thing. he is the guest of honor. the president of the united states, you are aware of his reaction. and that night you really were aware of the reaction. and could he bear -- colbert was in a very tough spot because he could not follow the normal rules of comedy at these dinners of making fun at both sides. he was in character. he was playing the character that he plays on tv. the faux bill o'reilly, the right wing thing. so he could only make fun of one side. and they were pretty pointed. both at the press and at the president. and he was aware it wasn't going well. he self-edited out a number of things he planned to do.

he was planning on, for example, resenting the president with a diploma for getting out of eighth grade that he knew wasn't going to go well. it was an impossible situation when you can't make fun of both sides and you are only targeting the president. host: we began talking about the origins of the dinner and ronald reagan, who was at most of the dinners except in 1981, we're going to show an excerpt from his final dinner in 1988. did he enjoy going to these events? guest: he did. some people have said no president ebb joys it -- enjoys it. a number do. president obama enjoyed going to the dinner. president george w. bush enjoyed going to the dinner although he hated how long they went and cut into things he wanted to watch like baseball games. he enjoyed it but wished it was shorter. president clinton hated his

first few really enjoyed the last couple. host: if you could tell the story about monica lewinsky, the awards, and how the president was going to come later but showed up earlier. guest: 1999 we -- one of the awards we gave was to michael who was at "newsweek" at the time. for a very controversial article regarding president clinton. and they knew how the program was going to go, so they -- the white house told us the president would be arriving late that night. they didn't come right out and say. so he's not there when michael gets the awards, but everybody knew that's what it was. so they were not at the head table when dinner started to be served. i had moved people over so they weren't on an island eating alone, and the secret service

said, came over and said we have a departure. and i said, from where? he said well the president's at the sheraton. i said, well, we didn't expect him until late. quickly got the mater d., move these people over. put plates down. hi to go out and meet them -- i had to go out and meet them when they arrived. they did. they came into the room. "hail to the chief." and i looked down at mike mccurry, the press secretary at the time, and i said, how did you do this? i thought -- he said, i told him i'd kick his butt if he didn't get here early. it all worked out. the only difference was we have a v.i. pirks reception beforehand -- v.i.p. reception beforehand and that was scheduled after the dinner. so people could be with the president and aretha franklin. host: do you want -- guest: president clinton is not the only one who was unhappy

about having to give an award to reporters. people getting the awards have written something where they find a scandal in the administration. the first award was given in 194 5 and only three years later president truman had to give an award to a story he hated. it was the morning of the dinner, truman wrote, half to give an award to a guy who got it by writing a pack of lies. feed him the press. ain't it grand. and then when he actually presented it, he hadn't meloed at all. he pulled in the reporter, so that only he could hear him, and he told him, if you keep mucking around with these things long enough, you'll get a kick in the pants. and pants is what was written. but apparently what he really said you're going to get a kick in the ass. then one other president, president nixon, was furious having to be there when awards were presented in 1971 dinner --

went back to the white house and wrote a several thousand-word-long memo blasting his staff for not letting him come after that. he pointed out to them, i still would have been there for enough of the boring three-hour program . as it was. but he also wrote, he dismissed the award winners and reporters there as quote, way out left wingers. every one of the recipients was receiving an award for a vicious attack on the administration. i had to sit there for 20 minutes while the drunken audience laughed in derision as the award citations were read. so bill clinton was not alone. host: how are you finding all this for your book? guest: that's why it's taking so long to write it. a lot of research. host: you mentioned aretha franklin. that's significant because she's not a comedian. guest: she's not. several years we have had ray charles and aretha franklin.

host: back to 1988, ronald reagan's final white house correspondent dinner president reagan: george bush is doing well. he's been a wonderful vice president but nobody's perfect. i put him in charge of anti-terrorism and the mclaughlin group is still on the air. but with so much focus on the presidential leaks, i have been feeling a little lonely these days. i'm so desperate for attention i almost considered holding a news conference.

>> looking at the u.s. house legislative work gets under way later today. later the afternoon work on eight bills under suspension of the rules. among them a bill concerning the famine in south sudan and a pair of bills dealing with the use of the capitol grounds for special events. more live house coverage when members gavel back in here on -span. >> in case you missed it on c-span, carol harper royal georgetown university's slave sale dedication. >> naming these buildings for isaac hawkins and ann marine b. craft is the beginning of our journey together towards the reeling from the jess wits of georgetown's legacy of slavery. >> pennsylvania congressman matt carget wright holding a town hall meeting. >> we have moved the needle on this discussion. it used to be no way, no how on anything like the a.c.a. but now it's let's make it work. >> the competitive enterprise

institute's marla lewis on science and publicpolicy. >> to the extent that it's possible, scientific research should similarly be separated from government. then you would not find climate science in particular being a faction ridden, orthodoxy enforcing political movement. but rather the quest for knowledge. > treasury secretary steve mnuchin. >> create middle income tax cuts, spur the economy, make our business taxes competitive. >> former ambassador to afghanistan, ryan crocker. >> clearly we've got to work with the afghans to -- for ablize the situation against a taliban onslaught and move ahead with a political process that is going to have to include pakistan. >> attorney general jeff

sessions on transnational crime organizations. >> if you are a gang member, we will find you. we will devastate your network. we will starve your revenue source, deplete your ranks, and seize your profits. we will not concede a single block or a street corner to your vicious tactics. >> c-span programs are available at c-span.org on our homepage and by searching the video library. >> sunday on "q&a," the house of truth, a washington political salon and the foundations of american liberalism. we talk with author brad snyder about his group of intelligence, ics frankfurtherer, walter litman, oliver wendall homes junior, and herbert hoover who met regularly in the early 1900's to debate politics and the future of the country. >> i think everybody frankfurter, litman,